Christmas 2009

I can hardly believe that Christmas has come and gone! Thank goodness! But here are our pictures of the long anticipated event. Here are our wise men and shepherd boys in our re-enactment of the nativity.
Waverly was able to play the part of the baby Jesus. Unfortunately, Andersen's little make-shift manger was pretty shifty and it collapsed with her in it the first time. As you can see we are both holding it together and she is still pretty upset about it all.

Gold, frankincense, myrrh.

After the re-enactment we let the boys each open one present of our choosing and what do you know? Pajamas!

They were really excited about new, in Campbell's words, kajamas!

Porter was the lucky one to put the star on top of the tree to our advent calendar this year. Although, I don't know if he will be getting the privilege again as it almost killed Andersen to lift him up to put it on :0)

Andersen's Mom sewed the calendar for us. It is an exact replica of the one Andersen's family used growing up. We love it! Thanks again Mom!

Here are all the presents. The calm before the storm!

I'll be sad when the tree has to come down.

Andersen's Dad started collecting these old oil trucks when he worked for Conoco as a petroleum engineer. Each year he would buy one for himself and an extra. He planned to give the extra ones to his grandkids on the Christmas after they turned 8yrs. old. Porter is the oldest grandchild so he has been the first to receive his oil truck from Papa Grigg. The package said that it had been wrapped in 1995 so it had been waiting a LONG time for Porter to open it!

Sorry I don't have more pictures of the boys tearing into their presents. Waverly was not waiting to be fed and Andersen is not very enthusiastic about taking pictures. But I was able to get a picture of the boys and all their opened presents. Here is Campbell, waiting to slash through some more presents.

Mason has claimed Batman as his superhero of choice :0)

Porter, checking out his new safe so that he can keep his brothers out of his stuff (don't know what Mason is doing?).

And Waverly's First Christmas! Not bad for only 4 months old. I wasn't able to get a picture of Coolidge with his presents because they were ALL OVER the place! Oh, well.

Andersen's not doing too well after opening up every other toy. Those toys are packaged in there tight! Honestly, I'm surprised we were able to get any of the toys out of their packaging, I think they were meant to stay in their packages!

Steven and Jerusha's family had ours in the name drawing this year and got the boys this cool coaster car. You just turn the steering wheel side to side and it pushes the car forward. It works really well on the hard wood floors ;) Thanks guys!

We had a great time opening presents and trying out all the toys. The boys even let Waverly play. I thought that was really sweet of them to include her.

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and we miss all our family that is far away. Thank you for thinking of us!

Peruvian Nativity From Joe

Since my brother John sent me a nativity from Brazil while serving his mission there, I have been collecting nativities from my family members who have been serving missions in various countries. Well, I don't know if "collecting" is the right term since I only had two. The other nativity I have was from my sister Amelia who served in Argentina. So last year I was really excited when Andersen's youngest brother, Joe, agreed to send us a nativity from Peru where he was serving at the time, but due to some dishonest people in the postal service there, we never received it. Joe returned home from his mission last month so I was quite surprised when we received a package from him a few days ago and it contained a Peruvian nativity! I love it! And I guess I can officially say I am "collecting" nativities. Joe said it is tradition in Peru to not put the baby Jesus out until Christmas day, but I wanted to take a picture of it to share. Thank you so much Joe! You made my day :0)

Nana and Papa's Christmas Dress

Back in October when Andersen's parents came to visit, I got to do a little shopping with his Mom. And she picked out this sweet little dress for Waverly to wear for Christmas and I have been waiting till she can fit into it. She just looked so cute in it, of course I had to take pictures. Thank you Nana and Papa for the Christmas dress!

Will, Christy, and Opryland

This last weekend we were able to go and visit Will and Christy and their girls in Tennessee this last weekend. It was a great trip and the boys love getting together with their cousins, probably because of all the unusual girl's stuff they get to play with while we're there :0) This was some kind of store they had set up, complete with shopping cart.

Kaylee and Cambri cannot get enough of Waverly! They loved holding her and helping me get her dressed. They had lots of really good advice for me on how to take care of a girl. Thanks girls! I need all the advice I can get in the girl department.

Then Will and Christy took us to Opryland which is a Hotel/Convention center but soooo much more. This place was HUGE and completely inside. This is a map of Opryland that they had there, complete with all the holiday attractions they had going on.

It was an incredible place and all decorated for Christmas. Here we are standing by the side of the river that goes throughout the "Delta" and that's the actual hotel in the background.

There was so much to see. Lots of plants and gardens and waterfalls, all inside, did I mention that?

This was the life sized nativity in front of the hotel. And you can see the trees in the background completely strung from top to bottom in white lights. These trees lined the drive up to the hotel. I still cannot even fathom how the wound lights around every single little branch!

Here are the kids trying to see the water show they had in the Delta. It was set to lights and music.

This is a little video of the finale. It was really impressive. And luckily none of the boys had a desire to run through the water.

Thanks Will and Christy for a wonderful weekend. We had a blast! A great way to start off Christmas vacation! We love you guys!

Sugar Cookies

This is one of my favorite memories of growing up, making sugar cookies with my Mom. But it is extremely time consuming so about once a year I talk myself into making them. The boys were super excited when Saturday I decided that I felt like baking cookies. We all had a great time decorating the cookies and then taking them to our neighbors.
And then we spent all of Sunday in a sugar coma.

Packages Arrive!

This is mostly for my parents so they can see how excited the boys got when their Christmas packages arrived. I had to break up the first video into two parts and the last video is of the next day after we got the train all set up under the Christmas tree. Thanks Dad and Mom!

Dancing With Waverly

The other day, after Porter and Campbell got home from school I caught Porter NOT doing his homework. Instead he was "dancing" with his little sister. I had been attracted by the sound of Waverly giggling and went in to see what had her laughing and there was Porter holding her up by her hands and twisting her side to side, signing some little diddy. I couldn't resist, I had to take pictures.

Christmas Tree Outing '09

One of our traditions each year is to go out the day after Thanksgiving (or some time that weekend) and get our Christmas tree. Sometimes we just go to Home Depot and pick out a tree, but our best trees have always been the ones that we've cut down ourselves. And since we had Will and Christy with us we decided to make it a day outing. Luckily there was a tree farm just down the road from us, AND over the river and through the woods. It was a beautiful day so it turned out even better than we had expected.

First, to get a across the river we had to take a ferry. This ferry claims to be the oldest working ferry in the United States and I believe it. Here is everyone watching a load of cars coming across.

This thing was even paddle powered!

The kids loved being able to get out of the cars and by fortunate luck no one fell in. I think we were all more aware after loosing Mason the day before ;0)

Then, just a few more miles after the river we reached the tree farm. It was called Baldwin Farms in Richmond, KY. It was a great little farm with animals the kids could pet, free hot cocoa, a small country store, and even some reindeer antlers to try on. Not bad Waverly!

Coolidge LOVES dogs and couldn't get enough of this little guy.

The boys thought for sure this huge white rabbit must have been the Easter Bunny.

Oh, and no farm is complete without a huge dirt pile to climb!

This picture cracks me up because it looks like Coolidge just caught a whiff of ...

They even found Santa, although he looked pretty busy. As hard as they tried to pull him out to tell him what they wanted for Christmas, he just wouldn't budge.

Keep pulling Porter!

Then finally, success! We found the perfect tree, but it was a little tricky cutting it down, even though there were plenty of helpers.

And poor Will even got crushed in the process. He thought the tree was going to fall the other direction.

Oh, Christmas tree! Oh, Christmas tree!

It was a great day and we were glad that Will and Christy and kids where there to help us pick out this year's Christmas tree. We think it's our best one yet! Our tallest tree at 9 feet. And it only cost us $60. We are definitely coming back here next year. Thanks guys!

For Family Home Evening on Monday we put all the lights on the tree and Coolidge was the lucky kid to put the star on top. Although, I don't think he liked being up so high as he kept arching his back and screaming. Oh well, nothing like instilling a fear of heights in them while they're young.